Paul Begala, an ally to the Clinton family and a regular contributor to CNN, appears to have completely flipped his opinion of Russia, specifically over whether the country is a serious foreign adversary of the U.S.
Begala’s rather high degree of dissonance is on full display when comparing one of his tweets from 2012 and statements made Wednesday on CNN. The Democratic pundit went from agreeing that Russia is not a significant threat to America, to essentially suggesting that the U.S. should bomb the country.
During a debate between the two main 2012 presidential election candidates, Begala praised former President Barack Obama for a now-famous quip that he said in reply to an oft-asserted argument by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
POTUS nails Mitt for saying Russia our #1 geostrategic threat. “The 1980’s called. They want their foreign policy back.” Bam!
— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) October 23, 2012
Romney said during the campaign that Russia is one of the biggest geopolitical threats to America, which many may now consider a somewhat prophetic statement, given the political and international climate. Obama criticized (perhaps even ridiculed) Romney for saying that Russia is more of a threat than terrorist groups like Al-Qaida, and Begala evidently appreciated the debate remark.
But now Begala is figuratively eating his own words, as he seems to be changing his tune.
“We were and are under attack by a hostile foreign power,” Begala said during a CNN segment. “We should be debating how many sanctions we should place on Russia or whether we should blow up the KGB, GSU, or GRU [Russia’s foreign intelligence agency] … If I was Trump, I would be mad because it has tainted his victory.”
WATCH:
While five years is certainly a lot of time for international diplomatic relations to shift, even Begala has admitted in the past that he and Obama were wrong. (RELATED: Facebook Hires CNN Anchor Who Can Barely Hide Her Anti-Trump Bias As New Arbiter Of News)
Absolutely. When @POTUS mocked Romney in 2012 for saying Russia was top threat, I cheered. @POTUS was wrong. I was wrong. Mitt was right. https://t.co/spF0zRZWEG
— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) December 10, 2016
Whether bombing Russia is a good idea, though, is a debate that Begala will likely be having a number of times in the near future.
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